The traditional method of purchasing to own is slowly phasing out, and in its place, there's recurring billing. Most businesses dealing with products and services are now looking for consistent income from loyal customers.
As a business, taking up a subscription billing will, in the long run, turn out to be beneficial to your organization. You have an assured source of income, and your responsibility is to keep the existing clientele satisfied even as you seek out new subscribers.
The first step in becoming a fully-fledged subscription company is to select a subscription management software that is reliable and has the kind of benefits you're looking to transfer to your customers. Without the right software, it will be impossible to serve your clients to satisfaction especially when the number grows exponentially.
When recurring billing is a challenging process, read the below article to discover solutions to some of the issues that may arise in the process.
10 Recurring Billing Challenges and How to Overcome Them
Managing Customers
As a subscription business, the number of subscribers is equivalent to the amount of revenue. Since most subscriptions are lowly priced, it helps to have many customers as possible. If you choose to manage a large client database manually, it can turn out disastrous. In addition to paperwork, you may not get to all clients on time.
A recurring billing system will help you to record the client's activities from the moment they made their first order. The systems record every upgrade, downgrade for each client.
Management of Billing Plans
You need to keep affordable prices to make as many people as possible subscribe to your products or services. Subscription services have packages that vary from the least priced to the most expensive. The packages are complex, and only a state of the art billing system can handle the processes without making a mistake. In addition, clients may keep moving from one package to the other, and though you can limit this to an extent, you need a system that can handle the movements' without putting your accounts in jeopardy.
Discounts and Promotions
Part of increasing the number of clients and your revenue is by giving discounts and promo codes. An all in one system helps you to not only come up with promotion codes but also tracks when a client redeems them for a product or a service. That way, your sales will make sense at the end of each financial year.
Managing the Billing Frequency
Subscriptions are renewable at different times of the year, and a billing system must handle the different times that the clients choose. That means some of the subscriptions could be busier than others such as monthly, bi-weekly or quarterly. When selecting a system, ensure it can handle the renewal of subscriptions in any frequency.
Customer Messaging
There are times when issues come up in the system that you may not be aware of let alone be able to communicate to hundreds or thousands of clients about them in real time. Billing software picks up the issues and sends an appropriate message to the client. Besides, it acknowledges receipt of payment, renewal of subscriptions, upgrade and much more. The process enhances the relationship with your customer by keeping the communication alive.
Tracking of failed Transactions
Like any system, recurring billing software may also experience system failure from time-to-time. You may not have the workforce to track the number of failed transactions manually. The billing system helps identify when there's a system bug and informs the client immediately through the messaging. You can, therefore, follow up from your end to fix the issue in good time. Having a system that takes care of the most critical aspect of communication will leave you with more time to work on your products or services.
Conclusion
There are many advantages of using a recurring billing system over the usual conventional method. Although the process gained popularity a few years ago, the subscription companies cannot opt to work without one. It lessens the amount of paperwork thus maximizing the amount of revenue while offering the clients a favorable payment plan.